Card v. Lloyd Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 July 1954
• Docket Number: No. 2281,2281
• Citation: 82 R.I. 182,107 A.2d 297
• Parties: CARD v. LLOYD MFG. CO., Inc. Eq.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 297

107 A.2d 297

82 R.I. 182

CARD v. LLOYD MFG. CO., Inc.

Eq. No. 2281.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 20, 1954.

A. Norman LaSalle, John L. McElroy, Providence, for petitioner.

Boss & Conlan, John T. Keenan, Providence, for respondent.

CONDON, Justice.

This is a dependent's petition for compensation under the workmen's compensation act, general laws 1938, chapter 300, article II, § 6, as amended by public laws 1942, chapter 1246. From a decree of the superior court denying and dismissing the petition, petitioner has appealed to this court.

The appeal raises the following question: Is a finding of causal connection in a final decree in an employee's proceeding for compensation res judicata of the same issue in a dependent's proceeding for compensation after the employee's death? At the hearing in the superior court the trial justice ruled that it was not and hence refused to allow petitioner to introduce into evidence the record of a petition for compensation brought by her husband wherein he had established that he was totally incapacitated by a coronary occlusion and that such occlusion resulted from an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.

The question arose in this way. On March 22, 1950 Joseph L. Card, petitioner's husband, sustained an injury to his heart while working in respondent's shop. This was followed by a coronary occlusion on March 25, 1950. Thereafter he brought a petition for compensation alleging therein that he was totally incapacitated as a result of the occlusion which he further alleged was caused by the injury of March 22, 1950. That petition was fully heard by a justice of the superior court but before decision was rendered Card died on March 17, 1951. However, his wife, as administratrix of his estate, duly prosecuted the case to the entry of a final decree in his favor.

That decree awarded the administratrix compensation for his total incapacity to the date of his death. It also contained the following specific findings: That the injury of March 22, 1950 arose out of and in the course of Card's employment; that such injury was the proximate cause of the coronary occlusion of March 25, 1950; and that as a result thereof he was totally disabled. The respondent, who is also the respondent in the case at bar, did not prosecute an appeal from such decree.

After her husband's death, petitioner filed the instant petition in her own right for dependent's compensation. As its sole defense thereto, respondent raised the question whether the occlusion was caused by the injury of March 22, 1950. The petitioner claimed that such question was finally and conclusively settled by the decree duly entered in the prior proceeding from which no appeal was taken by respondent. She therefore offered the record of such proceeding as proof that the coronary occlusion was caused by such injury. The respondent objected on the ground that the two proceedings involved separate and distinct rights and therefore the decree in the prior proceeding was not res judicata of any issue in the instant case. The trial justice sustained such objection on that ground and required petitioner to go forward with evidence in proof of that issue anew.

The petitioner's evidence failed to convince the trial justice, since contrary to the finding in the prior proceeding he found that she had not proved causal connection between the injury of March 22, 1950 and the coronary occlusion of March 25, 1950. In the course of his decision in which he reviewed the evidence at length he recurred to the question whether the decision of the justice of the superior court in the prior proceeding was binding upon him and stated: 'After examination of the cases and considerations of the issue involved the Court decided that the doctrine of res judicata did not apply and that the issue must be decided anew at this time by the Court.' The petitioner concedes there is respectable authority which supports that view, but she nevertheless contends that the trial justice erred, as more recent cases of equal authority take a contrary view.

The question is one of novel impression in this state. In England it was apparently settled many years ago, while the workmen's compensation act there was in its infancy, that the right to compensation thereby given to dependents was separate from and independent of that given to the workman. Williams v. Vauxhall Colliery Co., Ltd., [1907] 2 K.B. 433. Thereafter the English courts appear to have uniformly held that because of that fact the decision of an issue in a workman's proceeding for compensation could not be pleaded as res judicata of the same issue in a later proceeding for dependent's compensation. Howell v. Bradford & Co., 104 L.T. 433; Tucker v. Oldbury Urban District Council, 5 B.W.C.C. 296; Manton v. Cantwell, 13 B.W.C.C. 55; Harper v. Dick, Kerr & Co., 13 B.W.C.C. 250.

In the United States among the courts of last resort which have passed upon the question there is a pronounced split of authority. The following cases cited and relied upon by respondent to support the trial justice's decision substantially adopt the reasons of the English cases and hold the doctrine of res judicata inapplicable. Industrial Comm. v. Davis, 126 Ohio St. 593, 186 N.E. 505, 88 A.L.R. 1175; Wray v. Carolina Cotton & Woolen Mills Co., 205 N.C. 782, 172 S.E. 487; Laird v. State Highway Dept., 112 Vt. 67, 20 A.2d 555. The following recent cases are relied upon by petitioner for the contrary view. Hagerman v. Lewis Lumber Co., 13 N.J. 315, 99 A.2d 513; Lanning v. Erie R. Co., 265 App.Div. 576, 40 N.Y.S.2d 404, affirmed 291 N.Y. 688, 52 N.E.2d 587; Bell v. Batesville White Lime Co., 217 Ark. 379, 230 S.W.2d 643. Other cases have been cited and discussed by the parties in their briefs but they need not be mentioned here, since the above cases sufficiently illustrate the division of authority and the nature of the reasons upon which it is based.

After careful consideration of all the cases cited as well as others not cited by either party, we are of the opinion that those cases relied on by petitioner state the better view. At least such view is more consonant with our conception of the nature of the rights to compensation that the legislature intended to grant by virtue of the provisions therefor in our act. In our opinion those rights are not so entirely separate and distinct from each other that they may be considered different causes of action. On the contrary, while the rights to recive compensation are different they are based upon one and the same cause of action, namely, the sustaining by the employee of a compensable injury. So closely and intimately is a dependent's right to compensation tied together with the employee's right to compensation therefor that each has been held to arise at the same time so that only those who were his dependents at the time of his injury are...